(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Shops stayed closed and shuttered, the streets were clear of cars amid a heavy police presence, and there were calls for universities to close in anticipation of what organizers here have called Bahrain’s own “Day of Rage,” a demonstration modeled after the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
“What happened in Egypt and Tunisia inspired us,” said Maryam al Khawaja, 23, with the Bahrain Center for Human Rights Monday. “For years, there has been hopelessness here. Are we ever really going to be able to change anything? With Egypt, there is a sense of empowerment, that the young people can do it.”
Ms. Khawaja was in the village of Nuwaidrat, on the island of Sitra, an industrial area outside the capital that is dotted with poor and crowded villages populated by Shiite Muslims who complain of discrimination in work, education and housing at the hands of the Sunni elite. The police blocked off the main road into the village and a helicopter hovered overhead.
In the early morning, as young men came out of the mosque, the two sides squared off. A large contingent of riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the young men darting in and out of the alleys. Women joined in too, taunting the police, and then running. One young man was injured and was taken away in an ambulance bleeding from his eyes, nose and ears.
Others were bruised and wounded when police aimed their tear gas launchers directly at those gathered and fired at close range.
“I want my rights,” said Adel Mal Alla, 31, as he carried a Bahraini flag in one hand and in the other, a slice of onion, to help ease the effects of tear gas. “My life is very difficult.”
This tiny nation of about 1 million is among the most politically volatile in the Gulf, and also one of the most strategically important for the United States. It is the base for the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet. But there has long been tension between the Sunni Muslim king, Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa, the royal family and ruling elites, and the approximately 70 percent of the local population which is Shiite. About half the residents of Bahrain are foreign workers.
For more than a year, Shiites in villages around the nation have held protests, burning tires in the road, demanding the release of dozens of political prisoners, including 25 being tried on charges plotting to overthrow the state, charges seen by the people here as part of a broad effort to silence the Shiite majority.
But the call to protest on Monday, coming on the heels of the momentous events elsewhere in the region, appeared to have rattled the leadership here into trying both enticement and fear. The king announced that the state was giving every Bahraini family the equivalent of $2,700 in cash and he filled the streets with heavily armed riot police.
Human rights workers were clearly concerned at the potential for violence. The king has built a security force here staffed almost exclusively with foreigners. So the police charged with putting down any protests are from Syria, Sudan, Yemen and other countries, drawn here by the offer of eventual citizenship.
As a result, there is no connection with the people, and therefore a greater likelihood they will not hesitate to open fire, said Mohammed Al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights.
By midday, the early skirmishes had ended. The helicopters continued to hover overhead and the streets were unusually quiet as everyone braced for what may lay ahead.
“The people in Egypt joined together, they were one hand,” said Mahmoud Ahmed, 20, after he darted away from the police in the morning. “We have learned a lot from there. Here we will have to be one hand until we realize our objectives, too.”
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